Project acronym 3D-E
Project 3D Engineered Environments for Regenerative Medicine
Researcher (PI) Ruth Elizabeth Cameron
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARSOF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2012-ADG_20120216
Summary "This proposal develops a unified, underpinning technology to create novel, complex and biomimetic 3D environments for the control of tissue growth. As director of Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, I have recently been approached by medical colleagues to help to solve important problems in the separate therapeutic areas of breast cancer, cardiac disease and blood disorders. In each case, the solution lies in complex 3D engineered environments for cell culture. These colleagues make it clear that existing 3D scaffolds fail to provide the required complex orientational and spatial anisotropy, and are limited in their ability to impart appropriate biochemical and mechanical cues.
I have a strong track record in this area. A particular success has been the use of a freeze drying technology to make collagen based porous implants for the cartilage-bone interface in the knee, which has now been commercialised. The novelty of this proposal lies in the broadening of the established scientific base of this technology to enable biomacromolecular structures with:
(A) controlled and complex pore orientation to mimic many normal multi-oriented tissue structures
(B) compositional and positional control to match varying local biochemical environments,
(C) the attachment of novel peptides designed to control cell behaviour, and
(D) mechanical control at both a local and macroscopic level to provide mechanical cues for cells.
These will be complemented by the development of
(E) robust characterisation methodologies for the structures created.
These advances will then be employed in each of the medical areas above.
This approach is highly interdisciplinary. Existing working relationships with experts in each medical field will guarantee expertise and licensed facilities in the required biological disciplines. Funds for this proposal would therefore establish a rich hub of mutually beneficial research and opportunities for cross-disciplinary sharing of expertise."
Summary
"This proposal develops a unified, underpinning technology to create novel, complex and biomimetic 3D environments for the control of tissue growth. As director of Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, I have recently been approached by medical colleagues to help to solve important problems in the separate therapeutic areas of breast cancer, cardiac disease and blood disorders. In each case, the solution lies in complex 3D engineered environments for cell culture. These colleagues make it clear that existing 3D scaffolds fail to provide the required complex orientational and spatial anisotropy, and are limited in their ability to impart appropriate biochemical and mechanical cues.
I have a strong track record in this area. A particular success has been the use of a freeze drying technology to make collagen based porous implants for the cartilage-bone interface in the knee, which has now been commercialised. The novelty of this proposal lies in the broadening of the established scientific base of this technology to enable biomacromolecular structures with:
(A) controlled and complex pore orientation to mimic many normal multi-oriented tissue structures
(B) compositional and positional control to match varying local biochemical environments,
(C) the attachment of novel peptides designed to control cell behaviour, and
(D) mechanical control at both a local and macroscopic level to provide mechanical cues for cells.
These will be complemented by the development of
(E) robust characterisation methodologies for the structures created.
These advances will then be employed in each of the medical areas above.
This approach is highly interdisciplinary. Existing working relationships with experts in each medical field will guarantee expertise and licensed facilities in the required biological disciplines. Funds for this proposal would therefore establish a rich hub of mutually beneficial research and opportunities for cross-disciplinary sharing of expertise."
Max ERC Funding
2 486 267 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-04-01, End date: 2018-03-31
Project acronym ADAPT
Project The Adoption of New Technological Arrays in the Production of Broadcast Television
Researcher (PI) John Cyril Paget Ellis
Host Institution (HI) ROYAL HOLLOWAY AND BEDFORD NEW COLLEGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary "Since 1960, the television industry has undergone successive waves of technological change. Both the methods of programme making and the programmes themselves have changed substantially. The current opening of TV’s vast archives to public and academic use has emphasised the need to explain old programming to new users. Why particular programmes are like they are is not obvious to the contemporary viewer: the prevailing technologies imposed limits and enabled forms that have fallen into disuse. The project will examine the processes of change which gave rise to the particular dominant configurations of technologies for sound and image capture and processing, and some idea of the national and regional variants that existed. It will emphasise the capabilities of the machines in use rather than the process of their invention. The project therefore studies how the technologies of film and tape were implemented; how both broadcasters and individual filmers coped with the conflicting demands of the different machines at their disposal; how new ‘standard ways of doing things’ gradually emerged; and how all of this enabled desired changes in the resultant programmes. The project will produce an overall written account of the principal changes in the technologies in use in broadcast TV since 1960 to the near present. It will offer a theory of technological innovation, and a major case study in the adoption of digital workflow management in production for broadcasting: the so-called ‘tapeless environment’ which is currently being implemented in major organisations. It will offer two historical case studies: a longditudinal study of the evolution of tape-based sound recording and one of the rapid change from 16mm film cutting to digital editing, a process that took less than five years. Reconstructions of the process of working with particular technological arrays will be filmed and will be made available as explanatory material for any online archive of TV material ."
Summary
"Since 1960, the television industry has undergone successive waves of technological change. Both the methods of programme making and the programmes themselves have changed substantially. The current opening of TV’s vast archives to public and academic use has emphasised the need to explain old programming to new users. Why particular programmes are like they are is not obvious to the contemporary viewer: the prevailing technologies imposed limits and enabled forms that have fallen into disuse. The project will examine the processes of change which gave rise to the particular dominant configurations of technologies for sound and image capture and processing, and some idea of the national and regional variants that existed. It will emphasise the capabilities of the machines in use rather than the process of their invention. The project therefore studies how the technologies of film and tape were implemented; how both broadcasters and individual filmers coped with the conflicting demands of the different machines at their disposal; how new ‘standard ways of doing things’ gradually emerged; and how all of this enabled desired changes in the resultant programmes. The project will produce an overall written account of the principal changes in the technologies in use in broadcast TV since 1960 to the near present. It will offer a theory of technological innovation, and a major case study in the adoption of digital workflow management in production for broadcasting: the so-called ‘tapeless environment’ which is currently being implemented in major organisations. It will offer two historical case studies: a longditudinal study of the evolution of tape-based sound recording and one of the rapid change from 16mm film cutting to digital editing, a process that took less than five years. Reconstructions of the process of working with particular technological arrays will be filmed and will be made available as explanatory material for any online archive of TV material ."
Max ERC Funding
1 680 121 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-08-01, End date: 2018-07-31
Project acronym Arctic Domus
Project Arctic Domestication: Emplacing Human-Animal Relationships in the Circumpolar North
Researcher (PI) David George Anderson
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary This 6-year project aims to co-ordinate field research in each of these fields to elaborate a new model of emplaced human-animal relations evoking recent theoretical concerns of the definition of the person, the attribution of agency, and renewed attention to ‘built environments’. The project will work inductively from empirical observations in seven field sites across the circumpolar Arctic from the Russian Federation, to Fennoscandia, to Canada. The circumpolar Arctic originally provided many of the primary thought experiments for classic models of cultural evolution. It has now again become the focus of powerful debates over the balance between the protection of cultural heritage and the development of natural resources to fuel a future for industrial economies. The human-non-human relationships chosen for study cover the full range of theoretical and political discourse within the sciences today from primary encounters in domination to contemporary bio-technical innovations in farming. The team will transcend typical ‘existential’ models of domination between people and animals by describing complex social settings where more than one species interact with the cultural landscape. The team will also challenge existing definitions between wild and tame by instead examining what links these behaviour types together. Further, the team members will examine how domestication was never a sudden, fleeting intuition but rather a process wherein people and domesticates are sometimes closer and sometimes farther from each other. Finally, the research team, working within the above mentioned literatures, will develop a renewed model – a new way of describing – these relationships which does not necessarily rely upon metaphors of domination, competition, individual struggle, origins, or hybridity. The strength of the team, and the principle investigator, is their demonstrated ability to carry out fieldwork in this often difficult to access region.
Summary
This 6-year project aims to co-ordinate field research in each of these fields to elaborate a new model of emplaced human-animal relations evoking recent theoretical concerns of the definition of the person, the attribution of agency, and renewed attention to ‘built environments’. The project will work inductively from empirical observations in seven field sites across the circumpolar Arctic from the Russian Federation, to Fennoscandia, to Canada. The circumpolar Arctic originally provided many of the primary thought experiments for classic models of cultural evolution. It has now again become the focus of powerful debates over the balance between the protection of cultural heritage and the development of natural resources to fuel a future for industrial economies. The human-non-human relationships chosen for study cover the full range of theoretical and political discourse within the sciences today from primary encounters in domination to contemporary bio-technical innovations in farming. The team will transcend typical ‘existential’ models of domination between people and animals by describing complex social settings where more than one species interact with the cultural landscape. The team will also challenge existing definitions between wild and tame by instead examining what links these behaviour types together. Further, the team members will examine how domestication was never a sudden, fleeting intuition but rather a process wherein people and domesticates are sometimes closer and sometimes farther from each other. Finally, the research team, working within the above mentioned literatures, will develop a renewed model – a new way of describing – these relationships which does not necessarily rely upon metaphors of domination, competition, individual struggle, origins, or hybridity. The strength of the team, and the principle investigator, is their demonstrated ability to carry out fieldwork in this often difficult to access region.
Max ERC Funding
2 497 830 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-07-01, End date: 2018-06-30
Project acronym BABE
Project Bodies across borders: oral and visual memory in Europe and beyond
Researcher (PI) Luisella Passerini
Host Institution (HI) EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Country Italy
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary This project intends to study intercultural connections in contemporary Europe, engaging both native and ‘new’ Europeans. These connections are woven through the faculties of embodied subjects – memory, visuality and mobility – and concern the movement of people, ideas and images across the borders of European nation-states. These faculties are connected with that of affect, an increasingly important concept in history and the social sciences. Memory will be understood not only as oral or direct memory, but also as cultural memory, embodied in various cultural products. Our study aims to understand new forms of European identity, as these develop in an increasingly diasporic world. Europe today is not only a key site of immigration, after having been for centuries an area of emigration, but also a crucial point of arrival in a global network designed by mobile human beings.
Three parts will make up the project. The first will engage with bodies, their gendered dimension, performative capacities and connection to place. It will explore the ways certain bodies are ‘emplaced’ as ‘European’, while others are marked as alien, and contrast these discourses with the counter-narratives by visual artists. The second part will extend further the reflection on the role of the visual arts in challenging an emergent ‘Fortress Europe’ but also in re-imagining the memory of European colonialism. The work of some key artists will be shown to students in Italy and the Netherlands, both recent migrants and ‘natives’, creating an ‘induced reception’. The final part of the project will look at alternative imaginations of Europe, investigating the oral memories and ‘mental maps’ created by two migrant communities in Europe: from Peru and from the Horn of Africa.
Examining the heterogeneous micro-productions of mobility – whether ‘real’ or imagined/envisioned – will thus yield important lessons for the historical understanding of inclusion and exclusion in today’s Europe.
Summary
This project intends to study intercultural connections in contemporary Europe, engaging both native and ‘new’ Europeans. These connections are woven through the faculties of embodied subjects – memory, visuality and mobility – and concern the movement of people, ideas and images across the borders of European nation-states. These faculties are connected with that of affect, an increasingly important concept in history and the social sciences. Memory will be understood not only as oral or direct memory, but also as cultural memory, embodied in various cultural products. Our study aims to understand new forms of European identity, as these develop in an increasingly diasporic world. Europe today is not only a key site of immigration, after having been for centuries an area of emigration, but also a crucial point of arrival in a global network designed by mobile human beings.
Three parts will make up the project. The first will engage with bodies, their gendered dimension, performative capacities and connection to place. It will explore the ways certain bodies are ‘emplaced’ as ‘European’, while others are marked as alien, and contrast these discourses with the counter-narratives by visual artists. The second part will extend further the reflection on the role of the visual arts in challenging an emergent ‘Fortress Europe’ but also in re-imagining the memory of European colonialism. The work of some key artists will be shown to students in Italy and the Netherlands, both recent migrants and ‘natives’, creating an ‘induced reception’. The final part of the project will look at alternative imaginations of Europe, investigating the oral memories and ‘mental maps’ created by two migrant communities in Europe: from Peru and from the Horn of Africa.
Examining the heterogeneous micro-productions of mobility – whether ‘real’ or imagined/envisioned – will thus yield important lessons for the historical understanding of inclusion and exclusion in today’s Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 488 501 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31
Project acronym Biblant
Project The Bible and Antiquity in the 19th-Century
Researcher (PI) Simon Goldhill
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARSOF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary This project will investigate the interface between the study of the bible and the study of antiquity in the nineteenth century. These two areas -- the bible and classics -- are central to the intellectual world of the 19th century, a source of knowledge, contention, and authority both as discrete topics, and, more importantly, in relation to and in competition with one another. It is impossible to understand Victorian society without appreciating the intellectual, social and institutional force of these concerns with the past. Yet modern disciplinary formation has not only separated them in the academy, but also marginalized both subject areas -- which has deeply attenuated comprehension of this foundational era. Our project will bring together scholars working on a range of fields including classics, history of education, cultural history, art history, literary history to bring back into view a fundamental but deeply misunderstood and underexplored aspect of the nineteenth century, which continues to have a significant impact on the contemporary world.
Summary
This project will investigate the interface between the study of the bible and the study of antiquity in the nineteenth century. These two areas -- the bible and classics -- are central to the intellectual world of the 19th century, a source of knowledge, contention, and authority both as discrete topics, and, more importantly, in relation to and in competition with one another. It is impossible to understand Victorian society without appreciating the intellectual, social and institutional force of these concerns with the past. Yet modern disciplinary formation has not only separated them in the academy, but also marginalized both subject areas -- which has deeply attenuated comprehension of this foundational era. Our project will bring together scholars working on a range of fields including classics, history of education, cultural history, art history, literary history to bring back into view a fundamental but deeply misunderstood and underexplored aspect of the nineteenth century, which continues to have a significant impact on the contemporary world.
Max ERC Funding
2 497 046 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-06-01, End date: 2017-05-31
Project acronym CALENDARS
Project Calendars in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: standardization and fixation
Researcher (PI) Sacha David Stern
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary This project will study how calendars evolved in late antique and medieval societies towards ever increasing standardization and fixation. The study of calendars has been neglected by historians as a technical curiosity; but in fact, the calendar was at the heart of ancient and medieval culture, as a structured concept of time, and as an organizing principle of social life.
The history of calendars in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was a complex social and cultural process, closely related to politics, science, and religion. The standardization and fixation of calendars was related in Antiquity to the rise of large, centralized empires in the Mediterranean and Near East, and in the Middle Ages, to the rise of the monotheistic, universalist religions of Christianity and Islam. The standardization and fixation of calendars contributed also, more widely, to the formation of a unified and universal culture in the ancient and medieval worlds.
The standardization and fixation of ancient and medieval calendars will be analyzed by focusing on four, specific manifestations of this process: (1) the diffusion and standardization of the seven-day week in the Roman Empire; (2) the production of hemerologia (comparative calendar tables) in late Antiquity; (3) the use of Jewish calendar fixed cycles in medieval manuscripts; (4) the production and diffusion of monographs on the calendar by medieval Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars, especially al-Biruni’s Chronology of the Ancient Nations and Isaac Israeli’s Yesod Olam. Study of these four research areas will enable us to formulate a general interpretation and explanation of how and why calendars became increasingly standardized and fixed.
This will be the first ever study of calendars on this scale, covering a wide range of historical periods and cultures, and involving a wide range of disciplines: social history, ancient and medieval astronomy and mathematics, study of religions, literature, epigraphy, and codicology.
Summary
This project will study how calendars evolved in late antique and medieval societies towards ever increasing standardization and fixation. The study of calendars has been neglected by historians as a technical curiosity; but in fact, the calendar was at the heart of ancient and medieval culture, as a structured concept of time, and as an organizing principle of social life.
The history of calendars in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was a complex social and cultural process, closely related to politics, science, and religion. The standardization and fixation of calendars was related in Antiquity to the rise of large, centralized empires in the Mediterranean and Near East, and in the Middle Ages, to the rise of the monotheistic, universalist religions of Christianity and Islam. The standardization and fixation of calendars contributed also, more widely, to the formation of a unified and universal culture in the ancient and medieval worlds.
The standardization and fixation of ancient and medieval calendars will be analyzed by focusing on four, specific manifestations of this process: (1) the diffusion and standardization of the seven-day week in the Roman Empire; (2) the production of hemerologia (comparative calendar tables) in late Antiquity; (3) the use of Jewish calendar fixed cycles in medieval manuscripts; (4) the production and diffusion of monographs on the calendar by medieval Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars, especially al-Biruni’s Chronology of the Ancient Nations and Isaac Israeli’s Yesod Olam. Study of these four research areas will enable us to formulate a general interpretation and explanation of how and why calendars became increasingly standardized and fixed.
This will be the first ever study of calendars on this scale, covering a wide range of historical periods and cultures, and involving a wide range of disciplines: social history, ancient and medieval astronomy and mathematics, study of religions, literature, epigraphy, and codicology.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 006 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2018-01-31
Project acronym CANBUILD
Project Building a Human Tumour Microenvironment
Researcher (PI) Frances Rosemary Balkwill
Host Institution (HI) QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS4, ERC-2012-ADG_20120314
Summary Even at their earliest stages, human cancers are more than just cells with malignant potential. Cells and extracellular matrix components that normally support and protect the body are coerced into a tumour microenvironment that is central to disease progression. My hypothesis is that recent advances in tissue engineering, biomechanics and stem cell biology make it possible to engineer, for the first time, a complex 3D human tumour microenvironment in which individual cell lineages of malignant, haemopoietic and mesenchymal origin will communicate, evolve and grow in vitro. The ultimate aim is to build this cancerous tissue with autologous cells: there is an urgent need for models in which we can study the interaction of human immune cells with malignant cells from the same individual in an appropriate 3D biomechanical microenvironment.
To achieve the objectives of the CANBUILD project, I have assembled a multi-disciplinary team of collaborators with international standing in tumour microenvironment research, cancer treatment, tissue engineering, mechanobiology, stem cell research and 3D computer-assisted imaging.
The goal is to recreate the microenvironment of high-grade serous ovarian cancer metastases in the omentum. This is a major clinical problem, my lab has extensive knowledge of this microenvironment and we have already established simple 3D models of these metastases.
The research plan involves:
Deconstruction of this specific tumour microenvironment
Construction of artificial scaffold, optimising growth of cell lineages, assembly of the model
Comparison to fresh tissue
Investigating the role of individual cell lineages
Testing therapies that target the tumour microenvironment
My vision is that this project will revolutionise the practice of human malignant cell research, replacing misleading systems based on cancer cell monoculture on plastic surfaces and allowing us to better test new treatments that target the human tumour microenvironment.
Summary
Even at their earliest stages, human cancers are more than just cells with malignant potential. Cells and extracellular matrix components that normally support and protect the body are coerced into a tumour microenvironment that is central to disease progression. My hypothesis is that recent advances in tissue engineering, biomechanics and stem cell biology make it possible to engineer, for the first time, a complex 3D human tumour microenvironment in which individual cell lineages of malignant, haemopoietic and mesenchymal origin will communicate, evolve and grow in vitro. The ultimate aim is to build this cancerous tissue with autologous cells: there is an urgent need for models in which we can study the interaction of human immune cells with malignant cells from the same individual in an appropriate 3D biomechanical microenvironment.
To achieve the objectives of the CANBUILD project, I have assembled a multi-disciplinary team of collaborators with international standing in tumour microenvironment research, cancer treatment, tissue engineering, mechanobiology, stem cell research and 3D computer-assisted imaging.
The goal is to recreate the microenvironment of high-grade serous ovarian cancer metastases in the omentum. This is a major clinical problem, my lab has extensive knowledge of this microenvironment and we have already established simple 3D models of these metastases.
The research plan involves:
Deconstruction of this specific tumour microenvironment
Construction of artificial scaffold, optimising growth of cell lineages, assembly of the model
Comparison to fresh tissue
Investigating the role of individual cell lineages
Testing therapies that target the tumour microenvironment
My vision is that this project will revolutionise the practice of human malignant cell research, replacing misleading systems based on cancer cell monoculture on plastic surfaces and allowing us to better test new treatments that target the human tumour microenvironment.
Max ERC Funding
2 431 035 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31
Project acronym CARDIOEPIGEN
Project Epigenetics and microRNAs in Myocardial Function and Disease
Researcher (PI) Gianluigi Condorelli
Host Institution (HI) HUMANITAS MIRASOLE SPA
Country Italy
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS4, ERC-2011-ADG_20110310
Summary Heart failure (HF) is the ultimate outcome of many cardiovascular diseases. Re-expression of fetal genes in the adult heart contributes to development of HF. Two mechanisms involved in the control of gene expression are epigenetics and microRNAs (miRs). We propose a project on epigenetic and miR-mediated mechanisms leading to HF.
Epigenetics refers to heritable modification of DNA and histones that does not modify the genetic code. Depending on the type of modification and on the site affected, these chemical changes up- or down-regulate transcription of specific genes. Despite it being a major player in gene regulation, epigenetics has been only partly investigated in HF. miRs are regulatory RNAs that target mRNAs for inhibition. Dysregulation of the cardiac miR signature occurs in HF. miR expression may itself be under epigenetic control, constituting a miR-epigenetic regulatory network. To our knowledge, this possibility has not been studied yet.
Our specific hypothesis is that the profile of DNA/histone methylation and the cross-talk between epigenetic enzymes and miRs have fundamental roles in defining the characteristics of cells during cardiac development and that the dysregulation of these processes determines the deleterious nature of the stressed heart’s gene programme. We will test this first through a genome-wide study of DNA/histone methylation to generate maps of the main methylation modifications occurring in the genome of cardiac cells treated with a pro-hypertrophy regulator and of a HF model. We will then investigate the role of epigenetic enzymes deemed important in HF, through the generation and study of knockout mice models. Finally, we will test the possible therapeutic potential of modulating epigenetic genes.
We hope to further understand the pathological mechanisms leading to HF and to generate data instrumental to the development of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for this disease.
Summary
Heart failure (HF) is the ultimate outcome of many cardiovascular diseases. Re-expression of fetal genes in the adult heart contributes to development of HF. Two mechanisms involved in the control of gene expression are epigenetics and microRNAs (miRs). We propose a project on epigenetic and miR-mediated mechanisms leading to HF.
Epigenetics refers to heritable modification of DNA and histones that does not modify the genetic code. Depending on the type of modification and on the site affected, these chemical changes up- or down-regulate transcription of specific genes. Despite it being a major player in gene regulation, epigenetics has been only partly investigated in HF. miRs are regulatory RNAs that target mRNAs for inhibition. Dysregulation of the cardiac miR signature occurs in HF. miR expression may itself be under epigenetic control, constituting a miR-epigenetic regulatory network. To our knowledge, this possibility has not been studied yet.
Our specific hypothesis is that the profile of DNA/histone methylation and the cross-talk between epigenetic enzymes and miRs have fundamental roles in defining the characteristics of cells during cardiac development and that the dysregulation of these processes determines the deleterious nature of the stressed heart’s gene programme. We will test this first through a genome-wide study of DNA/histone methylation to generate maps of the main methylation modifications occurring in the genome of cardiac cells treated with a pro-hypertrophy regulator and of a HF model. We will then investigate the role of epigenetic enzymes deemed important in HF, through the generation and study of knockout mice models. Finally, we will test the possible therapeutic potential of modulating epigenetic genes.
We hope to further understand the pathological mechanisms leading to HF and to generate data instrumental to the development of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for this disease.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-10-01, End date: 2018-09-30
Project acronym CCFIB
Project Cardiac Control of Fear in Brain
Researcher (PI) Hugo Dyfrig Critchley
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary "Imagine what might be possible if you can turn fear on and off. In exploring the contribution of bodily arousal to emotions, we uncovered a specific mechanism whereby the brain’s processing of threatening / fear stimuli is ‘gated’ by the occurrence of heartbeats: Fear stimuli presented when the heart has just made a beat are processed more effectively than at other times, modulating their emotional impact. We term this effect the Cardiac Control of Fear in Brain (CCFIB). Specifically, I wish to refine, develop and exploit CCFIB as; 1) a clinical screening tool for drugs and patients; 2) as the basis of an intervention to accelerate unlearning of fear, e.g. for treatment of anxiety disorders; 3) as a means to optimise and enrich human-machine interactions, in anticipation of the rapid development of virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR) as a therapeutic tool, and to open possibilities for improving machine operation. This ground-breaking project will have impact in many areas, notably in the clinical management of anxiety disorders, which affect 69.1 million European Union citizens at an annual cost of €74.4 billion, and in the educational, recreational and occupational realms of human-machine interaction. The proposal 1) will refine knowledge about the neurochemistry and stimulus-specificity of CCFIB for implementation as a clinical screening tool, using pharmacological and neuroimaging methods. 2) Test in clinical anxiety patients the power of CCFIB to predict symptom profile and response to psychological and pharmacological treatment. 3) Optimize CCFIB to augment psychological and behavioural treatments and validate this in phobic individuals. 4) Instantiate CCFIB in VR/AR settings to enhance engagement with virtual environments, develop VR/AR as a ‘training platform’ in clinical and recreational contexts and to demonstrate how reactions to rapid threats fluctuate with cardiac cycle, motivating corresponding changes in sensitivity of user interfaces (e.g. brakes)."
Summary
"Imagine what might be possible if you can turn fear on and off. In exploring the contribution of bodily arousal to emotions, we uncovered a specific mechanism whereby the brain’s processing of threatening / fear stimuli is ‘gated’ by the occurrence of heartbeats: Fear stimuli presented when the heart has just made a beat are processed more effectively than at other times, modulating their emotional impact. We term this effect the Cardiac Control of Fear in Brain (CCFIB). Specifically, I wish to refine, develop and exploit CCFIB as; 1) a clinical screening tool for drugs and patients; 2) as the basis of an intervention to accelerate unlearning of fear, e.g. for treatment of anxiety disorders; 3) as a means to optimise and enrich human-machine interactions, in anticipation of the rapid development of virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR) as a therapeutic tool, and to open possibilities for improving machine operation. This ground-breaking project will have impact in many areas, notably in the clinical management of anxiety disorders, which affect 69.1 million European Union citizens at an annual cost of €74.4 billion, and in the educational, recreational and occupational realms of human-machine interaction. The proposal 1) will refine knowledge about the neurochemistry and stimulus-specificity of CCFIB for implementation as a clinical screening tool, using pharmacological and neuroimaging methods. 2) Test in clinical anxiety patients the power of CCFIB to predict symptom profile and response to psychological and pharmacological treatment. 3) Optimize CCFIB to augment psychological and behavioural treatments and validate this in phobic individuals. 4) Instantiate CCFIB in VR/AR settings to enhance engagement with virtual environments, develop VR/AR as a ‘training platform’ in clinical and recreational contexts and to demonstrate how reactions to rapid threats fluctuate with cardiac cycle, motivating corresponding changes in sensitivity of user interfaces (e.g. brakes)."
Max ERC Funding
1 912 383 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2017-05-31
Project acronym COGBIAS
Project Cognitive Biases - Windows into the Mechanisms underlying Emotional Vulnerability and Resilience
Researcher (PI) Elaine Fox
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary "Every person responds to life's difficulties in different ways. But why do some 'suffer the slings and arrows of outragerous fortune' and other 'take arms against a sea of trouble'. There are those who are vulnerable and fragile, falling prey to anxiety, depression and a range of compulsions that, left unattended, can easily turn into addicitons. Then there are the those who irrespective of what life throws at them, always seem able to cope. Moreover, a small proportion of these resilient people seem to truly flourish. Rather than ""being OK"" they live lives of optimal mental health. Why? The proposed project aims to find some answers to these questions as well as developing straightforward methods to help people boost their own mental wellbeing from whatever the starting point. The project is truly innovative in harnessing recent advances in molecular genetics that allow for the identification of sets of genes that we know influence the development of toxic and protective cognitive biases, and matching this with cutting-edge innovations in cognitive psychology that allow researchers to instill and modify cognitive biases under laboratory conditions. When combined with advances in Internet technology these techniques provide truly exciting possibilities for implementing ""cognitive bias modification"" (CBM) interventions in people's own homes or on their mobile devices. Even without the added benefit of a genetic component this research is likely to make important advances in our understanding of emotional vulnerability and resilience. But, including a genetic component, while challenging, provides the potential to make major and genuine breakthroughs in our ability to enhance human wellbeing"
Summary
"Every person responds to life's difficulties in different ways. But why do some 'suffer the slings and arrows of outragerous fortune' and other 'take arms against a sea of trouble'. There are those who are vulnerable and fragile, falling prey to anxiety, depression and a range of compulsions that, left unattended, can easily turn into addicitons. Then there are the those who irrespective of what life throws at them, always seem able to cope. Moreover, a small proportion of these resilient people seem to truly flourish. Rather than ""being OK"" they live lives of optimal mental health. Why? The proposed project aims to find some answers to these questions as well as developing straightforward methods to help people boost their own mental wellbeing from whatever the starting point. The project is truly innovative in harnessing recent advances in molecular genetics that allow for the identification of sets of genes that we know influence the development of toxic and protective cognitive biases, and matching this with cutting-edge innovations in cognitive psychology that allow researchers to instill and modify cognitive biases under laboratory conditions. When combined with advances in Internet technology these techniques provide truly exciting possibilities for implementing ""cognitive bias modification"" (CBM) interventions in people's own homes or on their mobile devices. Even without the added benefit of a genetic component this research is likely to make important advances in our understanding of emotional vulnerability and resilience. But, including a genetic component, while challenging, provides the potential to make major and genuine breakthroughs in our ability to enhance human wellbeing"
Max ERC Funding
2 486 937 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-10-01, End date: 2018-09-30
